Posts Tagged ‘mobile applications’
IBM Unveils Comprehensive Mobile Portfolio
Click to enlarge the infographic. As the first new technology platform for business to emerge since the World Wide Web, mobile computing represents one of the greatest opportunities for organizations to expand their business. Based on nearly 1,000 customer engagements, 10 mobile-related acquisitions in the last four years, a team of thousands of mobile experts and 270 patents in wireless innovations, IBM MobileFirst offers an array of solutions that helps businesses connect, secure, manage and develop mobile networks, infrastructures and applications.
IBM is going big on mobile.
Today, the company unveiled “IBM MobileFirst,” a comprehensive mobile strategy that combines security, analytics, and application development software, with cloud-based services and deep mobile expertise.
Using IBM MobileFirst solutions, businesses can now streamline everything from the management of employee mobile devices, to the creation of a new mobile commerce app that will transform their entire business model.
Today’s move by IBM builds off of its experience helping nearly 1,000 customers become mobile enterprises, and takes advantage of its thousands of mobile experts and 270 patents in wireless innovations.
IBM has made 10 mobile-related acquisitions in the past four years alone.
IBM also announced an expanded relationship with AT&T to provide developers with tools to create faster, richer mobile apps and services for customers. For instance, organizations can now quickly incorporate payment and messages into their apps.
With this expanded partnership, the AT&T API Platform, featuring IBM Worklight Adapters, will enable the more than 31,000 members of the AT&T Developer Program to quickly create and securely deploy enterprise apps that improve subscriber engagement and customer loyalty.
With these adapters that support AT&T’s ecosystem of APIs including those for speech, SMS, device capabilities, notary management and payment, developers can quickly and securely create rich, business-ready apps across a variety of platforms including iOS, Android and Windows.
Through IBM MobileFirst, IBM is providing companies with the essential tools to take advantage of new business opportunities being enabled by mobile.
A Broad Portfolio of Mobile Solutions
To be successful in embracing mobile for driving revenue growth, clients must have an integrated strategy for mobile, cloud, big data, social business and security. Today’s announcements from IBM help clients harness these complex technologies to drive innovation and growth.
IBM’s mobile solutions portfolio provides the key elements of an application and data platform with the management, security and analytics capabilities needed for the enterprise.
In addition to meeting mobile-specific requirements, the portfolio provides for rapid integration between social and cloud services as well as back-end technologies that help secure and manage strategic business processes. Key aspects include:
- IBM MobileFirst Platform – New updates include expanded capabilities of IBM Worklight to simplify deployment. It also features single sign-on capabilities for multiple applications. A new beta of the Rational Test Workbench for mobile helps to improve the quality and reliability of mobile apps.
- IBM MobileFirst Security – IBM extends its context-based mobile access control solutions and expands mobile application vulnerability testing with support for Apple iOS apps with the latest release of AppScan.
- IBM MobileFirst Management – New updates to IBM Endpoint Manager include enhanced support for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs and increased security standards that are critical to governments and regulated environments.
- IBM MobileFirst Analytics – IBM is expanding its Tealeaf CX Mobile solution to give enterprises more visual insight into mobile behaviors so they can better understand where improvements are needed and create exceptional and consistent consumer experiences across mobile devices.
To provide organizations with maximum flexibility and accelerate their adoption of mobile computing, these solutions can also be delivered through cloud and managed services.
A Deep Set of Mobile Services for Clients
Enterprises are embracing the mobile revolution at a rapid pace. IBM has thousands of mobile experts to help clients understand how industries will be transformed in a mobile world, based on client engagements across more than a dozen industries.
The IBM MobileFirst portfolio features several services to help clients establish mobile strategies, design and implement mobile projects. These include:
- IBM MobileFirst Strategy and Design Services – Clients can tap into IBM expertise to map out a mobile strategy for employees and customers, and key experience design skills from IBM Interactive to build compelling mobile experiences. IBM’s new Mobile Maturity Model can assess how a business is progressing towards becoming a mobile enterprise, while new Mobile Workshops help clients develop applications, architect infrastructure and accelerate their mobile progress.
- IBM MobileFirst Development and Integration Services – IBM offers services that help organizations roll out a mobile infrastructure and manage mobile application portfolios and BYOD environments. Enhanced Network Infrastructure Services for Mobile provide IT network strategy, optimization, integration and management. Mobile Enterprise Services for Managed Mobility help manage and secure smartphones, tablets and devices across a business. Mobile Application Platform Management helps speed deployment of mobile infrastructure to develop mobile applications more easily and quickly.
An Expansive Set of Mobile Resources and Programs for Business Partners, Developers and Academics
According to IBM’s recent Tech Trends Report, only one in 10 organizations has the skills needed to effectively apply advanced technologies such as mobile computing.
To help overcome this skills gap, IBM is rolling out a series of resources to help its ecosystem of developers, partners and academics tap into the mobile opportunity and augment existing skills or develop new ones.
These include:
- Developers – IBM today is announcing a relationship with AT&T that will enable developers to enhance mobile apps by using IBM Worklight to access AT&T’s APIs in the cloud. Now, developers have another tool with AT&T to quickly and easily create apps with rich features such as speech recognition and rapid payment. IBM is also rolling out new technical assets on developerWorks and CodeRally, a developer game community.
- Business Partners – With Ready for IBM MobileFirst, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) can also embed mobile technologies into their solutions and Software Value Plus now provides mobile certifications, workshops and incentives for resellers and systems integrators.
- Academics – To help train the next generation of mobile developers, IBM is offering new faculty grants for curricula development. IBM is also making IBM Worklight available, free of charge, for the classroom and via online training to teach both students and faculty to develop for mobile environments.
IBM Global Financing, the lending and leasing arm of IBM, can also help companies affordably transform into mobile enterprises.
Credit-qualified clients can take advantage of simple, flexible lease and loan packages for the IBM MobileFirst portfolio — some starting at as low as 0% for 12 months with no up-front costs — allowing businesses to acquire essential technology and services while managing cash flow more effectively.
To learn more, visit the IBM MobileFirst site. You can also follow @ibmmobile, #ibmmobile on Twitter, and see IBM MobileFirst on YouTube, Tumblr and Instagram.
Also, watch the video below (3:46), for it paints a broad, comprehensive, and gorgeous “picture” of the enterprise mobile opportunity and challenges.
IBM MobileFirst Announcement Coverage:
Scrolling Down iPhone Memory Lane
I heard it was the 5th anniversary of the introduction of the iPhone, which, first of all, just freaked me out, because how could it have been five years already!
But, once I was over that, I realized I have a record of my thoughts and observations back them in the form of this blog.
So, I went back and weaved together the following based on my observations in and around that year on the topic of the iPhone.
Read at your own peril. Accessories not included.
June 4, 2007 (25 days prior to the iPhone Launch)
Headline: Why I Won’t Be Getting An iPhone
Well, at least not yet, anyhow.
First, as I think I’ve explained in the past, I’ve been burned too many times on early adoption.
The only early adopting I’ll be doing moving forward is for small canine creatures I keep as pets.
Second, I just got my Blackberry Pearl.
It seems to do most everything I need it to do, for now. Everything except allow me to successfully browse the Internets. It used to do that, too, until the IBM internal software installation corrupted the browser.
They tell me I can fix it by wiping the Blackberry hard drive and starting from scratch.
Let me get this straight: I bought a Blackberry so I could check my corporate email and calendar (which I can successfully still do) and to surf the Internet.
But in order to successfully surf the Internet, I have to wipe the Blackberry hard drive and reinstall from scratch, in the process giving up my ability to successfully check my corporate email and calendar? And this is supposed to be productivity enhancement???
Three, the iPhone costs in the neighborhood of $600.
My Blackberry Pearl cost me $99. I can think of another $501 reasons I’ won’t be waiting for a new iPhone to ring.
Four, I don’t like grovelling or begging, nor do I like sleeping overnight on sidewalks outside the Cingular store, not for concert tickets and certainly not for a new cell phone.
When I bought my Pearl, I called ahead, had ’em charge the Pearl in advance of my getting to the store, and by the time I arrived, simply did a quick run through and check out. I liked the Cingular retail people veddy much.
On June 29th, I will be staying as far away from the Cingular Web site and retail stores as is humanly possible. The core Appleites (pun intended) will be out en masse, they will be single minded of purpose, and they will have great anxiety over whether or not they’ll be one of the lucky ones to win the iPhone lottery.
I will stay as far away from them and their mob as is humanly possible.
That is, unless they are willing to give me a personal tour of their new iPhone, in which case I’ll be happy to oblige their momentary lapse of reason.
June 18, 2007 (11 days prior to the iPhone Launch)
Headline: Eight Hours Of Apple Talk
Me, I’m still trying to recuperate from my U.S Open anxiety, but the rest of the blogosphere is all Apple iPhone talk all the time, apparently now eight hours at a burst.
The latest headline: iPhone is expected to deliver up to eight hours of talk time.
That’s a big deal, at least in terms of expectation setting, because there’s been tremendous criticism about the built-in battery that a user couldn’t replace with an already charged backup.
It also helps if you got yourself a long-winded teenager stuck at the mall…be sure to upgrade that ATT plan!
Me, I hope never to have to abuse my Blackberry Pearl with an 8-hour conversation, but then again, nobody really wants to talk to me, and I can always buy a backup battery, so this isn’t an issue pour moi.
As if Apple and the iPhone wasn’t already sucking up all the oxygen on Planet Earth (what’s left of it), and if you’ve not read or heard enough about the cult of Steve Jobs lately, New York magazine has a great feature by Silicon Valley journalistic hit man John Heilemann entitled “Steve Jobs in a Box.”
“Steve! Are you in there!? Steve??! Do you need help getting out of the box, Steve?!!”
It’s juicy, long format, going-deep-into-Steve’s ego id and psyche kind of stuff technojournalism, complete with Heilemann’s breaking out Jobs’ career into three “acts.”
Could there be a Metropolitan Opera version waiting in the wings, complete with Bill Gates starring as the Devil himself?
Wait a minute, this oughta be a Pixar/Disney film, NC17 edition.
Oh well. You’ll just have to head over to New York mag online for the current installment.
June 25, 2007 (4 days prior to the iPhone Launch — I was on a business trip out in Silicon Valley, and actually visited the Apple campus just a few days prior to the iPhone debut)
Headline: I Want My iPhone
Rumors abound of Apple employees publicly flouting units from the first manufacturing run, and I have no doubt the lines will start forming at the AT&T stores for we plebes sometime today.
You can get your first reality check and low, lowdown on the iPhone around 6 P.M. Pacific Standard Time this evening, which is when Walt Mossberg’s and David Pogue’s first reviews are expected to strike.
Word on the Business2.0 blog street is the early reviews are “generally positive” but that “downloads are sluggish” over AT&T’s current cellular network and that there are “typing difficulties.”
Well, uh, yeah. There’s no friggin’ keyboard on the thing (well, not the keyboard as we typically have known it)!
That’s like saying there are steering difficulties on a Lamborghini with no steering wheel (and on Highway 101, I’m certainly beginning to wonder if a steering wheel is really even necessary).
This is a whole new computing paradigm, people, and, it’s from Apple: You have to will the thing to do what you want.
It’s all about the human mind telepathic connection interface! Don’t you get it??!!
June 29, 2007
Headline: The New Chic: Geeks Waiting In Line
First off, this post is NOT being written while waiting in line at an Apple retail outlet, an AT&T store, or elsewhere.
Second, thank Heavens, I was rescued from out of the heart of Silicon Valley, where iPhone fever has reached new heights (remember when people waited in line for Windows95?), and safely back in Austin just in time for the flooding to recede.
But clearly, I’m in the minority.
Supergeek blogger Robert Scoble is waiting in line with all his other geek friends (see the pics here….wait a minute, doesn’t Scoble qualify as Mr. Supergeek Celebrity to get a free iPhone in advance?).
Kevin Rose and the Diggnation crowd were podcasting in line.
Just in case you wanted to read about or listen or watch what it’s like to wait in line to get an iPhone.
I know I was wondering.
Which makes me wonder something else: Maybe waiting in line for the latest geek gadget is the new chic.
Pulling an old Coleman sleeping bag out of the closet and investing in a solar battery generator to keep the G4 crowd in power, maybe this is the thing, and the iPhone is just part of the overall package, almost a mere afterthought to the status reserved for those who waited.
I wait, therefore I am.
“Dude, what did you do Friday night?” “As if, dude. What do you think I did?? I was waiting in line to get my iPhone. Where the —- were you?!!”
Wait not, want not.
That sense of Burning Man iPhone collegiality is the only thing that explains this phenomenon.
Because here’s the deal: The thing goes on sale online at the very same moment it can be bought in the retail outlets and, guess what? Regardless, it has to be activated online through the iTunes store to get the service up and running.
Until such time, you’ve got a really pretty Apple artifact.
But who’s to argue with reason. I wish them all well and the very best of luck.
Me, I’ll be sitting in my nice air-conditioned condo, doing some work, maybe throwing on a little AppleTV in the background.
On second thought, maybe I’ll go out and join ’em.
Not to get an iPhone, mind you.
Just to hang out with the geeks where I belong.
December 26, 2007
Headline: Year of the iPhone
Looking back on 2007, there’s but no question in my mind that Apple’s iPhone dominated much of the tech conversation.
I opted for a $99 Blackberry Pearl instead (partially because of its form factor, partially because it’s what allows me access to needed IBM resources like email and calendaring), and it’s done me just fine — especially considering it was about 5X cheaper than the iPhone.
But, the iPhone cultural phenomenon and technology footprint couldn’t be escaped, nor questioned.
I was at the Apple campus in June visiting with a friend, just before the first iPhones went on sell, and I didn’t see a single iPhone unit while on the Apple campus (allegedly only top execs had them prior to the launch), they were so tightly held.
No big surprise, considering Apple’s tight grip and embargo on its launches. But the phenomena that was the pending iPhone couldn’t be constrained.
Months prior to the launch, Google and other search engines were inundated with search inquiries about the iPhone…blogs were abuzz about the product features…podcasts explained its virtues…the mass media mass brainwashed the masses about its planet-saving capabilities.
For weeks after, the halo of the afterlaunch melted into the tech landscape, complete with new tech lore about being the first in line, or waiting in line with one’s Apple brethren, or etc ad nauseum ad infinitum.
When was the last time you bragged about waiting in line?
I succumbed to the hype myself, long enough to go into the store and touch an iPhone firsthand.
It was all I could do to leave the store without buying one.
But then I came back to my senses and started thinking logically about the problems that an iPhone would or would not solve for me personally (what a concept! Purchase a product only because it actually solves a problem!), and the Blackberry Pearl would do just fine.
And it has.
So I wouldn’t be the coolest kid on the cubicle block…so I wouldn’t be able to personally extol the virtues of the new touch screen interface…so I wouldn’t be able to becoming a walking, talking Apple salesperson in my spare time, despite all the constant complaints about the lethargic AT&T Edge network (which never seemed to slow me down much with the more text-oriented Blackberry).
Life would go on.
And it has.
But the milestone it demarcated would be clear.
Because the real phenomena behind the phenomenon for me around the iPhone was not the device itself, but rather the notion that mobile IP-based multimedia computing was finally coming into its own.
After years of the U.S. lagging behind the SMS craze in Europe (which launched well before most Americans knew what a text message was), or the DoCoMo iMode craze in Japan in the late 1990s and early 2000s (which was how many Japanese first experienced the Internet), I felt as though the U.S. was getting a clue and catching back up.
If nothing else, the iPhone demonstrated what was becoming possible at the intersection of mobile data and voice, of mobile computing, after years of overpromising and underdelivery.
That a cell phone didn’t just have to be a cell phone, but that it could evolve into a true multimedia personal information manager and portable computing and communications device, using an interface that we mere mortals could understand and learn quickly.
It was the opportunity presented by the possibility of a nuclear intersection between computing, communication, collaboration, personal entertainment, and mobility.
That we could use it to communicate and get directions and do work and listen to music and watch videos and find somebody’s phone number.
No, for my money, the iPhone was only a starting place, the beginning of something much, much bigger to come. A mile marker on the way to a much more promising land.
It was the Star Trek communication device brought down to reality here on earth.
“Beam me up, Steve.”
It was a great start, but it was only that.
So, go ahead, use your index finger to scroll down. It works well enough.
Me, I can’t wait to see where that scrolling finger might take us next.
turbotodd
Turbotodd 